I'm glad there is a dedicated thread for me to gush in. I'm sure it would get messy if everyone just did it all over the forums.
Factorio is my favourite game of all time.
I had a strange experience when I first started playing it of having my mind repeatedly blown.
The core gameplay was fantastic but it kept throwing these other awesome systems at me. Vehicles - omg awesome! Crazy weapons like flamethrowers etc - awesome! Oh, and there's armor that you can customize, awesome! Then there's the rail system - I spent days just playing around on trains and experimenting with their schedules and loading/unloading systems.
The thing that really blew my socks off was the robots. I couldn't believe such awesome mechanics could all coexist inside one game, it was just too much awesome in one package.
And then there was the combinators - its like, oh yea, by the way, we also have a turing-complete programming language within the game. Just, by the by. lol
My time played currently stands at 2678 hours and therefore I feel I am about 26% of the way to mastering this game (as per the 10,000 hour rule). But I would not be surprised at all if I am still learning stuff at the 11,000th hour
But wait ! I'm not done with my list of superlatives.
Wube is the best developer in the world.
Every decision that has been made about the game, bar none, I completely agreed with and I love that you guys are so transparent about what is happening and about the discussions that take place internally and with the player base. Not only that, but sharing of the discussion process and rationale behind why certain decisions are made. I have never felt so valued as a game customer, nor as engaged in the outcome, as I do with Factorio. I read every FFF as soon as it comes out, and have started working my way through the back catalogue to read about the dramatic early days of the game when everything was touch and go. It makes me wish I could teleport myself back in time to help financially support the game at that difficult time.
The thing I like the most... is probably the way that we players are able to develop our own "technology" in the form of blueprints, circuits, train systems or whatever. When you get something complicated working for the first time, and it does a specific job very efficiently in exactly the way you'd hoped, it's as if you just unlocked something new on a hidden tech tree. Suddenly new possibilities are opened, and it was made so by your own design ingenuity. That is an incredibly satisfying feeling - that we are slowly bootstrapping ourselves through experimenting and designing to ever-more automated or efficient ways of playing.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for making and continuing to make the greatest game I've ever played. You guys are awesome!! :>